


tryna find a part of me you didn't take up

by piecesofgold



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Donna Centric, F/F, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Pre-Canon, Slight Canon Divergence, Too much coffee, Unrequited Love, gracious use of french language, the author knows nothing about photojournalism and it shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-10-26 07:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofgold/pseuds/piecesofgold
Summary: So she accepts the watered down and counterfit versions of love she thinks she deserves, gives back as much as she can, and it's fine, she thinks she can live like that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WELL. This is the longest thing I've ever written. Kinda started as one thing then evolved into a much bigger, month-long-planning-and-writing debacle. A literal labor of love and many sleepless nights because I kept leaving it and coming back.
> 
> Shoutout to [Katarina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverMessWithTeddyBears) for being my sounding board / cheerleader / willing to talk about this show so much when this fic got way bigger than I thought it would. I owe ya big time.
> 
> Started writing this around 2 weeks before s2 started so if I'm way off storyline base concerning the flashbacks, that's why.
> 
> Title; Taylor Swift - Death By A Thousand Cuts
> 
> Enjoy!

Donna has never been very kind to her own heart.

It’s a byproduct of survivor’s guilt, she knows. When she was a child and new to the ways of the Amazons, she wouldn’t stop training until she was forced to, long after some part of her was badly bruised or bleeding, and Diana would smooth gauze over the inflamed skin, murmuring softly.

“Donna, my sweet,” she’d say, voice gentle as her hands, “you do not need to hurt yourself to prove anything.” It took a long time for Donna to understand that, to stop inflicting pain on herself both internally and externally, just because she could. It took longer than it should have for her to stop punishing herself for being the only one to survive that fire.

Diana and the Amazons got her through it, filling her life with love and family and hope. And Donna loves them all dearly, would not change any of those moments for the world.

But she’s human, too - and humans as a default will internalise their pain until it’s poison to their core. Pain and loss feel like old friends now - what else is she supposed to do other than swallow it down and take it?

* * *

Dick Grayson is the closest thing Donna has to a brother in the same way Diana is her mother; through circumstance and superhero entanglement.

The very first time she meets him, she’s thirteen, and Diana is going to Gotham to meet with Bruce, taking Donna with her in hopes of her befriending the Bat’s kid. They stare one another down stood between Diana and Bruce, a wordless contest, their first of many.

She breaks his wrist an hour later in the training room, and his smile is like a knife.

The rest is history. _Their_ history, specifically - all the sleepovers and bad nights, private tears and fears they keep between them, anger at the unfairness of the universe, stupid nicknames, the first time they get drunk together on a stolen bottle of Bruce’s whiskey and Alfred rolled his eyes at them groaning weakly under the covers, the first and last time they tried to smoke a cigar on the roof of the manor and almost hacked up their lungs, any time they were able to just be Dick-and-Donna, prentending to be perfectly ordinary teenagers rather than the children of the most prominant superheroes in the world.

Donna knows him like the back of her hand. Before they were Titans and he was their fearless leader, he was her best friend and brother first.

But the one thing she holds back until they’re almost sixteen, she ends up blurting out mid-sparring session - Dick’s complaining about Bruce again, and Donna’s only half listening while blocking and dodging his hits, her mind whirring. Suddenly, she’s flat on her back, wind knocked out of her, with Dick frowning over her.

“How’d you not see that coming? You sure you’re okay? You’ve been out of it since you got here.” He offers his hand and pulls her up, concern etched on his face.

Donna opens her mouth to say she’s _fine, don’t try to distract me from kicking your ass, Grayson_, but what comes out is: “I’m gay.”

And honestly, Donna doesn’t know which of them is more surprised. Dick blinks at her once, twice, three times. “You - what?” He looks so perplexed Donna would laugh if all her blood hadn’t rushed straight to her head.

“I’m, uh, a lesbian.” _Zeus, open the ground right now and let me fall through_.

Dick looks like he’s tying himself into knots, staring at her. “...So you only like girls?” He cringes as soon as he says it, and something in Donna’s chest loosens.

“Yes, bird-brains, that’s the universally accepted definition of what a lesbian is,” she deadpans.

Dick smiles. “Okay. If I hug you, are you going to stab me?”

Donna laughs, already reaching for him. “No promises, boy wonder.”

He mutters into the hug that he loves her and always will, which, back then between the two of them is the best reaction she could have hoped for.

* * *

She told Diana the week before, and those brown eyes that in another universe Donna could have inherited softened in a way they so rarely did nowadays because she was so _stressed_, and beckoned Donna into her arms, murmuring soft words of support that Donna hadn’t realised she needed to hear. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Donna squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I-it’s different here to how it is on the island, isn’t it? There, I’m allowed to let myself want - want girls.” God, it felt strange to say that out loud. “But here, it’s - it gets hidden away. People can be killed for it.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Diana, I don’t want to die for this. I don’t want anyone to.”

Diana had pulled back, her hands on Donna’s shoulders. “You will not,” she said firmly. “Donna, you are allowed to want other women, never let anyone tell you that you aren’t. And for the others, the ones who fight and die to love who they want because they’re told they can’t - that is why _we_ fight, too, _mon chéri_.” She smooths back Donna’s hair. “We will stand and we will fight for those who cannot. And you are worth the fight, Donna. Never forget that.”

She doesn’t.

Relationships between Amazonians and between humans are vastly different, Donna quickly learns from the string of flings and girlfriends she has as a teenager. On Themyscira, they read about the secrets of the flesh and pleasure between two people, and would explore what they read on paper with one another. Donna remembers the first girl she was with, how hurt she was when the girl didn’t want to spend the night in Donna’s bed and left long before the sun was up. In her head, those encounters translated as _you are a warrior made to fight for the Gods; you were not made for such distractions_. Perhaps it was always the human part of her that yearned for such a connection.

She is forever grateful to Diana for teaching her the strength in those connections and relationships. She’s grateful to Diana for a lot of things; her mother's patience and understanding sometimes feels like a bottomless pit.

So she accepts the watered down and counterfeit versions of love she thinks she deserves, gives back as much as she can, and it’s fine, she thinks she can live like that.

Until she meets Dawn Granger.

* * *

Some part of Donna wants to dislike Dawn the first time she meets her; a childish, possessive part that wants to keep Dick all to herself, her brother and partner and best friend. And she wasn’t all that jazzed about working with a team, either, no matter how much Dick insisted it’d be a good idea and Diana’s gentle encouragement.

“You’re telling me you want to be Wonder Woman’s sidekick forever?” Dick demanded.

“Do you want to be Batman’s Robin forever?” Donna snapped back. This was an old argument. “How well do you know these people, Dick? How do you know we can even work with them?”

She’s almost glad she was able to eat her words.

_Sugar and steel_, Donna thinks the very first time they meet, tense under Dawn’s curious gaze. _The kind of woman who will smile sweetly while twisting a knife in your gut_. She’s stood shoulder to shoulder with Hank, the two of them an impenetrable fort together.

But Dawn smiles, warm and open, extends her arm to Donna, and Donna’s greeting her with similar exhilaration before her brain even catches up with her.

Dick’s stood back, watching them carefully, smug smile on his face. Donna makes a note to punch him - after saying hello to Hank.

“So, you’re, what - Wonder Woman’s protégée?” Dawn asks some days later, panting, fists raised, sweat sticking her white hair to her forehead.

Donna makes a noncommittal noise. “Something like that.” She makes a sharp jab at Dawn’s nose; Dawn dodges her easily. “Diana practically raised me.” Dawn goes for her midsection; Donna twists around, grabs her arm and tosses her over onto the floor. “What about you?” She pulls Dawn up, resuming first stance.

It’s like shutters on a windows closing. Dawn tenses, mouth setting in a hard line. “Not much to tell, far as all our tragic backstories go. Shitty dad, watched my mom die, sister’s always in trouble.”

Donna lowers her stance slowly. “You watched your mother die?” She repeats softly.

Dawn meets her gaze, mouth twisted in an unhappy smile. “I’m okay, Donna, really.” Like _Donna_ is the one who needs reassurance. “How I met Hank. Group therapy. And beating the shit out of bad guys.”

Donna lips quirk. “Is there any other way we meet people?”

(And isn’t that the tragedy of their very existence? That they had to endure such loss and pain in order for their paths to cross. Donna doesn’t like thinking about it very much.)

They give up training in favour of sitting on the mat and just - _talking_. Donna tries to get her to talk about her family, but Dawn shuts her down smoothly, diverting questions to Diana, Themyscira, how she met Dick, and Donna answers as much as she can bring herself to.

“Don’t you -” Dawn stops, knocks her knee against Donna’s.

“What?”

“You don’t want to always be _Wonder Girl_, do you?” She asks, head tilted. “I mean, I see why you are, but don’t you want to...rebrand yourself as something other than Wonder Woman’s sidekick?”

Donna stares at her, taken aback. In truth, it’s not something she had really thought about at length, no matter how many times Dick brought it up - perhaps in fleeting moments, like when she was given her Nikon F5 camera, and dragged Dick all over New York with it one weekend. On the way back to Gotham, he’d rested his head on her shoulder, eyes closed, and muttered tiredly, “I wish it was always like this.”

“I’m not Diana,” she starts, frowning. “I know I’m not her, I don’t _want_ to be her, but -“ she stops, tries to think of a way to word it. “I’ll always owe her, y’know? And being Wonder Girl honors her, in a way.”

Dawn looks at her carefully. “Donna, doing good doesn’t have to be about honoring her. It can be for you, too.”

Donna considers that, avoiding Dawn’s gaze. “Guess that’s something I still need to figure out.”

Dawn smiles, and something warm uncurls in Donna’s chest.

They’re interrupted by Hank asking if they want takeout, but Donna’s mind stays on that mat in that training room, with Dawn’s bright smile and home-steady brown eyes.

She’s knows that when it started. Part of her wishes it had ended there too.

* * *

One thing about all of them is that when it comes to talking about _feelings_, they’re sealed shut boxes. It takes more than three months of them living and working together in San Francisco before they start to pry open.

Dawn tells Donna about her father, her sister and mother, looking anywhere but Donna’s eyes, and Donna tells her about her parents, the fire, watching her father burn, the overwhelming feeling of guilt she still carries. She doesn’t even realise she’s crying until Dawn hugs her.

Hank doesn’t tell them, in as many words. Donna somewhat put the pieces together herself, a sick feeling growing in her gut. When she dared to broach the subject with him, his expression hardened. “He’s dead. That’s all you need to know,” is all he’d said, and she’d left it at that - but not without an open offer to talk if he needed to. She takes his thanks as a win.

Dick brings back another stray (“They’re not _strays_, Donna, they people and they need help - why are you laughing?”) - only it’s not a stray, not to her, anyway.

A jolt goes through her, the first she sees Garth in three years. He looks exhausted, hair too long, eyes regarding them all warily. Donna is the first to step forward, folding him into a hug. “Geez, Garth, did Arthur finally get tired of your snappy catchphrases?” She asks as a joke, trying to ease the tension, but the way he clings to her and sighs so heavily she thinks he might collapse there and then tells her it’s anything but.

“Something like that,” Garth mutters into her shoulder.

Dick gives her the rundown once Garth is passed out in the first empty bedroom he finds; things had been strained between Garth and Arthur after Arthur’s marriage and the announcement of Mera’s pregnancy, nothing was improving for him with the other Poseidonians despite all Garth had done (Donna feels an unexpected surge of rage at that) - so Arthur sent him away.

“Diana’s gonna kill him.”

“Don’t tell her,” Dick says sternly.

“Why not? How would you feel if Bruce sent _you_ away like that?” Donna hisses.

Something flashes across Dick’s face, so fast Donna misses it. She frowns, and Dick shakes his head.

“Look, we don’t need a Justice League squabble on top of this, too. Garth’s here now, and he’s gonna be fine. He has us. We can help him, at least.”

Donna tells Diana anyway, but makes her promise not to start a Justice League civil war over it. Diana mutters some choice words in French under her breath before promising to just have a _quiet word_ with Arthur about abandoning his protégée.

“A quiet word with you or your lasso?” Donna asks, and Diana’s laugh tinkers through her mobile.

“I may shout at him a bit, allow me that.”

“No objection here.” Donna pauses, glances over at Garth’s closed door, pondering.

“Donna?”

“You…” Donna tries. “If - if it was us, and something like that happened, when I was younger -” She feels like a child, a silly little girl asking her mother if she would ever leave her like everyone else seems to.

“Donna,” Diana’s voice is soft. “Never. I would not have even considered it.”

And she _hates_ it, will never not hate the part of her brain that goes through every what-if and could-have-been situation that keep her awake at night. Donna is suddenly incredibly angry with herself. She is a grown woman. She should not have to ask the woman who saved and raised her if she would have abandoned her. Surely she should be more _secure_ than that, now.

“Okay,” she says quietly. “Thank you.”

* * *

Hank practically drags them out one Friday night to a homely dive bar a few miles from the Tower. Considering the day and hour, it’s fairly quiet - a few couples littered around, a tired looking barman, some kids who are very much not twenty-one playing pool at one of the tables. Dick, Hank and Garth are at one - well, Dick and Hank are playing, Garth seems pretty content watching them. Donna’s eyes slide over to them every so often out of instinct, like they’re on a mission and she needs to keep checking they’re safe.

Donna really wishes she could turn that instinct off.

She’s sat at the bar with Dawn, who’s on her third cocktail and halfway tipsy, trying to toss peanuts into Donna’s mouth and failing because she’s giggling too much. Donna obediently eats them anyway.

“We should do this more often,” Dawn says, taking another sip of her drink.

“We should,” Donna agrees, “but you try convincing boy wonder over there to take a break once in a while.” She looks over at Dick again, and her lips twitch seeing him trying to wrestle out of the headlock Hank has him in, nuggying him and thoroughly messing up Dick’s hair.

“Stop that.”

Donna startles. “Stop what?”

Dawn gestures at her. “_That_. Poised for attack. Always looking over at the men to make sure they’re okay. We’re _fine_, Donna. You’re allowed to let loose a little.”

Donna closes her eyes and breathes, forces herself to relax. There is no imminent danger, they are not preparing for battle, they’re in a bar and they’re _fine_.

God, she really is starting to sound like Dick.

Dawn has that look on her face when Donna opens her eyes, all soft and fond - the look that makes Donna’s stomach lurch with feelings she is absolutely not prepared to face yet.

Still, Donna squints at her, takes a swig of her beer. “What now?” Dawn laughs.

“Nothing, just -” she nods over at the men. “I think I see why you and him connected so well.”

Dick is showing Garth how to play now, lining up the cue with the cue ball. Dick’s got the same look on his face that he gets when they’re training or mid-fight; total focus on one goal. Donna looks away before Garth takes the shot.

“He wasn’t always like this, y’know. When we were younger he used to get _me_ into trouble.”

Dawn seems to consider this, still looking over at Dick - and the expression on her face is so open about how she actually feels about him that Donna drains the last of her beer to drown out the stab of jealousy she feels. It’s fine. She can handle the heterosexual tomfoolery. She’s fine. Everything’s fine.

“That’s surprisingly not so hard to believe.” Dawn looks at Donna again. “Tell me.”

Donna thinks for a minute, then grins. “Okay, one time, we must have been about seventeen, we snuck out of the manor - which in hindsight is ridiculous because Bruce has cameras _everywhere_ and definitely saw us. Anyway, we end up in a bar, kind of like this one but Gotham, so, more than one criminal and concealed weapon in sight, and they must have recognised Dick because they were serving us drinks without asking for ID.” She’s talking with her hands, knows she’s talking a mile a minute with the excitement of the memory, one of her most treasured, but Dawn is gazing at her with those eyes and that smile, and Donna can’t even make herself feel embarrassed.

“So I look away for, like, three minutes, and I turn back and Dick is fucking _onstage_ with a mic, I don’t know _how_ the fuck he managed to get roped into doing karaoke but there he is, and Bohemian Rhaspody starts playing - listen, stop laughing! - and Dick starts _belting_ it out like his life depends on it, does all the backing vocals himself, then starts doing _full choreography_ when the beat drops - and I’m just sitting there trying to figure out if my drink has been spiked and I’m hallucinating because I’ve never seen anything like it in my fucking _life_.”

She’s laughing so hard by the end that her ribs ache and it hurts to breathe, and it’s only when she realises that Dawn is in the same state that she becomes acutely aware that their legs are slotted together, and Dawn is holding onto Donna’s knees to keep herself from falling.

Donna looks up at Dawn laughing, her head thrown back and white hair tumbling, and it’s like being doused with ice water.

_Oh_. Oh, God.

It’s not fine. It’ll never be fine.

Stone cold realisation is what makes her stand, needing Dawn’s touch off her before it burns through her skin.

“I, uh.” Donna feels like she’s about to throw up. “Need the bathroom, might head home. It’s pretty late.”

She sees the concern on Dawn’s face, the confusion at the sudden shift in Donna’s attitude, opens her mouth to ask if she’s alright.

Terrified her chest is about to split open and reveal everything - Donna bolts.

(On her way out, she catches Garth’s eye. Dick hasn’t even looked over. Garth tilts his head at her, questioning, and all Donna can do is shake her head.)

* * *

Dawn Granger is too easy to fall in love with.

(The landing almost breaks everything in her.)

It feels like a cosmic joke. A _bad_ cosmic joke, at that. Because why Dawn? Why the woman who already has two others half in love with her? Why the woman Donna has to watch her brother fall in love with, too?

Hank, Donna, Dick.

Donna wonders how it’s even possible for one person to have three other people fall in love with them, so easily and so quickly. Perhaps that was a power Dawn herself didn’t know about.

Hank and Dawn start fighting, often and loudly, over anything and everything. Missions become such an issue with the two of them paired together that Dick makes them switch; Dawn with Garth, Hank with Donna.

“I’m losing her,” Hank says quietly, stood in the shadows with Donna, waiting for their cue.

Donna doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing.

“She won’t talk to me,” he continues, and Donna figures she should just let him vent. “And it’s not like I’m not trying to fix whatever the fuck is broken - it’s that she won’t _tell me what it is_.”

Donna closes her eyes and sighs. “It’s not you, Hank. I swear. It’s not you.”

She’s about to explain further when there’s the unmistakable sound of a window smashing, and Dick - Robin - rolls past them in a flurry of red, green and black, and they’re off.

It doesn’t get any better. Hank starts sleeping in one of the spare rooms. Donna pretends not to hear Dawn creeping past her bedroom to Dick’s in the middle of the night and going back to her own at sunrise.

* * *

“You’re an idiot.”

Dick jumps, cup of tea halfway raised. “What?”

“You’re an idiot,” Donna repeats, leaning against the counter.

Dick has the nerve to look confused. “...Why?”

Donna clenches her teeth. “I know you’re sleeping with Dawn, Dick.”

Dick freezes. He doesn’t question how she knows. “Does Hank know?”

Oh, Donna is going to punch him. “Really? That’s the first thing you ask? No promises that you’ll break it off, not even an explanation as to why you would sleep with one of your _best friends girlfriend_.”

Donna has always prided herself in being able to read Dick Grayson, ever since they were teenagers and all it took was a look for her to know he needed to get out of Gotham and hop on the train to New Jersey for the day, the same way he would make a pillow fort in the lounge of Wayne Manor and watch _The Mummy Returns_ with her because he knew she was stressed.

Now, though, stood in front of him, Donna hasn’t got a clue what he’s thinking, and it’s frightening and infuriating.

“It doesn’t concern you, Donna,” Dick tells her, voice flat and face expressionless.

“Oh, like _hell_ it doesn’t.” Donna snaps, voice rising. “Two of the people I love most in the world are sabotaging the _only thing we have_ because they can’t keep it in their pants, but sure, this doesn’t concern me.”

“_Donna_.”

Donna closes her eyes, composes herself. “I love you,” she says, quiet. “I love you and I want you to be happy, you know I do. But - why? How?”

Dick looks away. “I don’t know,” he finally answers. “It just - crept up on me. Not like I could control it. How I feel about her.” The raw vulnerability in his voice makes something hook in her chest.

Donna almost laughs, because yeah, same, and then she wants to cry, because at least Dick is able to have Dawn, in his arms and in his bed. Hell, Hank had that.

The simple, painful fact of the matter is that Donna is in love with Dawn Granger, too - but Donna is the only one Dawn doesn’t want.

* * *

Donna feels like she’s unravelling.

The walls that Diana spent so many years taking down start coming up again. Donna detaches, compartmentalises. She can do the work. She separates it from the broken relationships between her teammates.

Garth gently steps in when Dick begins pulling away from her - out of guilt, probably and it’s not the same, how could it be? But he sits and listens patiently to her spill all her secrets when it’s just the two of them and a bottle of whiskey, lets her cry over her stupid, battered heart and the knowledge that love will always be a fickle, fake thing for her.

He doesn’t look surprised when she tells him about Dawn.

“I see the way you look at her,” is all he says, smiling joylessly. Donna groans and drops her head onto his shoulder.

“Please tell me you’re not in love with her, too, because I’m just gonna leave the team if you are,” Donna declares, and Garth laughs.

“No, I seem to be the only one in this Tower not harbouring anything towards our Dove.”

“I hate you.”

“I can imagine. Wanna get ice-cream? That place you like is still open.”

They’re still teammates, they’re still Titans, they’re still the closest thing they all have to a family - but with a horrible, gut-twisting tension. All five of them in the same room together feels like a ticking time bomb.

It doesn’t help that Dawn seems utterly oblivious to Donna’s inner turmoil.

Despite it all, despite feeling like she’s losing the one place she was sure she belonged - Dawn is still her _friend_, her best friend next to Dick and favourite person. Donna wishes it made anything easier.

Donna’s walls stay up high, until those quiet moments that she’s never prepared for; when it’s just the two of them on a rare day off lounging around doing nothing, half asleep and exhausted after missions, or stumbling home drunk from the dive bar and for all Donna’s Amazon training she still has a hard time keeping them both upright.

Those moments, when Dawn looks at her like she hung the moon, and maybe their bodies are a little too close together, and Donna can feel her walls and self control slipping.

It’s a second, just one second of Donna deciding whether she should kiss her or not, before Dawn breaks the moment with a sigh or laugh, and Donna feels like she’s swallowing sand.

* * *

It goes up in flames so suddenly, dies so fast that Donna thinks she’s choking on ashes.

They do not fear Slade Wilson at first - they’re wrong not to. He comes and sets their world on fire, takes everything sacred from them and destroys it.

Garth’s blood splatters all over Donna’s face, red as her costume.

She screams, she thinks - those following few hours are a blank nothing. The next thing she’s aware of is Dawn sat in front of her, shaking hands wiping Donna’s face. She’s been crying.

The numb bubble around her bursts.

“Garth -” Donna gasps, throat raw.

Dawn shushes her quickly, more tears spilling over. “It’s alright, you’re okay.”

“He’s dead, oh God,” She grabs Dawn’s wrist. “Slade - he shot him in the _head_, he’s -”

Dawn doesn’t try to say anything more, just pulls Donna into her arms. Donna clings to her and cries, cries until her chest feels like its caving in and she’s hollow. The way she hasn’t cried since the fire.

She holds onto Dawn as if she’s the only living thing at the end of the world.

* * *

Dick goes after Slade himself, comes back days later broken and bruised in places Donna knows can never be fixed. He tells them in voice they’ve never heard before that Slade’s dead. They believe him.

Donna packs her bags that night, is unsurprised when she leaves her room to see Hank and Dawn have done the same.

Dick stands apart from them, knuckles white where he’s gripping the counter.

“So this is it, right?” Hank asks, hollow. “End of the road.”

Donna looks heavenward, looks anywhere but at their faces. Garth getting shot in the head replays in her mind over and over.

_I could have saved him_.

“I can’t stay here,” she manages, stomach jumping. “I-I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Dawn whispers, sounding more composed than all of them put together.

Dick hasn’t said a word, glaring at the floor. Donna doesn’t know what to say to him, what to do. Something’s changed in him - it’s not just anger under the surface now, it’s something new and ugly and Donna is not at all prepared to face it right now.

He doesn’t look up as she approaches him, doesn’t even react when she tentatively puts a hand over his. “I’ll call you.”

It’s the last time she sees him for three years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how i said this chapter would be shorter than the first one? yeah, that was an absolute lie and you should never believe a word i say.
> 
> i’ll be honest, this feels like total 4am-caffeine-induced-waffle and i definitely feel like it’s not that great but that’s probably bc i’ve been sat staring at it for almost 2 weeks.
> 
> s/o to dyann for the gentle bullying / encouragement / donnakory edit that made me cry and write an extra 3k words.
> 
> enjoy!

Donna doesn’t bother to call Diana when she gets on the plane. Diana opens her front door, takes one look at Donna and immediately opens her arms.

Donna cries until her eyes are swollen and all the moisture in her body feels as if its dried up.

Diana doesn’t ask what happened or why Donna decided to show up on her doorstep in France, in the middle of the night, unannounced. She just takes Donna’s bag into the spare room, sits her down at her kitchen table and makes a pot of tea. Donna’s running on fumes, staring blankly at the wooden table, head full of white noise. The tea goes cold in her hand.

She feels like a child again when Diana pulls a comforter over her, brushes her hair back and lightly presses the back of her fingers to her forehead. They could be on Themyscira, twenty years ago, Donna an angry and broken little girl with smoke in her dreams and Diana desperately trying to clear them.

Donna forgets sometimes how _old_ Diana, that of the two of them Donna is the one who has changed the most - physically, at least. Donna will age, albeit slower than most, but Diana will stay the same, forever frozen at thirty years old, the only thing remotely old about her the look in her eyes when she thinks no one else is looking. Young and old and wise and everything Donna will never be.

“We’re going to talk about this,” Diana tells her, quiet in the still room.

Donna swallows, presses her face further into the pillow. “I know.” It’s the very last thing she wants to do.

Diana nods, standing. “But not tonight.” Heading for the door, she pauses. “Sleep, _mon chéri_.”

Donna doesn’t sleep. Every time she closes her eyes, all she sees is red; the colour of her favourite sweater, her suit, Garth’s blood on her face.

* * *

Donna runs on autopilot for a week, sleeping late and drifting around the apartment while Diana shoots her worried looks on her way out to work. Donna figures Bruce or Arthur must have called to explain what happened.

Getting out of bed is too much. She feels leaden, trapped in a permanent state of exhaustion and unable to move. Waves of pincer-like pain keep pummeling at her brain as her body is dragged down, down, down every time she’s awake long enough to remember her friends are gone, the woman she loves is on the other side of the world, Garth is dead, and she’s never felt more alone in her life.

She just wants to sleep.

“I could have saved him,” Donna whispers. It’s late; she’s on the sofa, hair wet from the shower, watching Diana write up confirmation orders at her desk.

Diana looks up, a flicker of surprise across her face for half a second before she schools it back into a neutral expression. She leans back, work forgotten. “Could you? Would he have let you?”

Donna snaps her head towards her. “How can you say that, _let me_? You think Garth _wanted_ to die like that?” Her voice breaks.

“Donna, Garth was willing to die for any one of you,” Diana says calmly, and Donna can tell she’s been practising for this. “The tragedy of it is he died _saving_ you, and you have no way of asking him if he meant to.” She pauses. “And I think, if we were able to ask him, he wouldn’t regret it. Choosing your life over his in that moment.”

Donna closes her eyes, desperately forcing back tears. “You’re saying he died _for_ me, not _because_ of me. How is that different?”

“Did you aim the gun? Did you pull the trigger?” Donna looks up at Diana’s sudden stern tone. “Slade Wilson killed Garth, Donna. Not you. Garth died _for you_, and that may be the worst thing you ever live with.”

“How do you?” Donna whispers, hugging her knees.

Diana looks away for a moment, sorrowful. “You live for the ones you lose. You live to honour them and their sacrifice.” Her voice has gone soft. “You live for the ones you still have left. Don’t lose sight of that now, Donna.”

She can’t bring herself to call Dick, out of guilt and fear - of what he’s become now, of where he’s gone. She stares at her cell phone for half an hour before working up the nerve to text him.

_staying with D in paris for a while, just so you know. where are you? call if you need me x_.

She figures he can read between the lines; _I’m sorry I haven’t been there, I’m okay, if you’re not I’ll get the first flight out_.

Her phone dings three hours later with his reply.

_all good. back in gotham._ And three seconds later: _i’m alright, donna. take care of yourself_

The message is loud and clear: he doesn’t want Donna with him right now. It hurts more than she’s willing to admit.

Her stomach rolls at the thought of him back in Bruce, after everything - because if she knows Dick Grayson at all, she knows he’ll bury the agony and grief over losing someone in violence, compartmentalise and channel it through his fists without a second thought of what it’s doing to him.

For half a second, Donna considers getting the next flight back to help him, before realising she can barely help _herself_ right now. Like Diana would let her go in this state, anyway.

She’s texting another number before she can talk herself out of it. _Take care of him, please_.

The reply comes faster than she expected.

_Always, Miss Troy_.

* * *

Diana practically drags her out of the apartment one weekend, insisting they go sightseeing.

“Diana,” she sighs, standing firmly still as Diana tries to gently steer her towards the door. “You know I’ve been sightseeing around here a thousand times since I was about ten years old, right?”

Diana grins. “I know, but you’ve never _needed_ it like this time.”

So she picks her camera up for the first time in weeks and lets Diana take her all around Paris; first to the Louvre, because Diana needs to drop off some paperwork, so Donna wanders around the Greek sculptures for a while. She remembers the first time she was here, starry-eyed and awe inspired, clinging to Diana’s hand and every word. Venus of Arles, the Borghese Gladiator and Diana of Versailles, with her arm forever reaching for the arrow on her back, had seemed immense and intimidating. Now their perfectly carved stone faces feel like old friends.

She’s taking a photo of Venus when she sees Diana leaning against an archway, smiling.

“What?” She asks, immediately feeling as though she’s been caught doing something wrong.

“Nothing. It’s nice seeing you here again, is all. Shall we go?”

Paris is home, Donna forgets sometimes. After Diana took her in, her time was split between here and Themyscira for years, and French was the first language she insisted she be taught by her tutors. Dick used to say her accent would slip sometimes, if she was tired or annoyed, which Donna would call bull on since she spent the first decade of her life in _Chicago_. The language is second nature to her, though, and her favourite thing to do when she was younger, staying over at Wayne Manor was to get up early with Diana and exchange conversation in French just to see Bruce Wayne roll his eyes and Dick frown, eyes darting between them because he still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of learning more languages outside of his own Romani and English yet.

It’s a good day - it’s the best day she’s had in a long time. She strains her neck staring up at the stained glass windows of Notre-Dame, overhears a tour guides speech she practically has memorised; almost drops her camera in the Seine on the ferry and pretends not to notice Diana giggling at her; spends far too much money on tickets into the Musée d'Orsay and willingly waits twenty minutes to see Van Gogh’s _The Church of Auvers_ and _Starry Night Over the Rhône_. She’s seen them a thousand times and probably will a thousand more, but the feeling they invoke any time she’s this close to them - very little compares to it.

She finds Diana in front of William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s _Equality Before Death_, depicting the Angel of Death covering a dead young man with a shroud.

“That one used to scare me,” Donna says softly. When Diana puts an arm around her, she sees the tears in her eyes.

“Oh, I remember. You used to rush over to Starry Night as fast as you could, fight your way through the crowd.” Diana wipes her eyes hastily. “I’ve always found it oddly comforting.”

“I know. You used to tell me no matter where we go in life, the one thing we can be sure of is where we end up,” Donna recalls, feeling her chest constrict.

She rests her head on Diana’s shoulder, and they stay like that for a few minutes.

“I need to talk to you about something, when we get home,” Donna finally says.

“Okay,” Diana says after a pause. She doesn’t even sound surprised. “But first, ice cream.”

“Oh, God, yes please.”

* * *

It’s dusk by the time they get back. Donna heats up leftovers, Diana makes tea, and once they’re settled Donna looks her square in the eye and says, “I can’t do it anymore.”

Diana goes still, regards Donna carefully. “I’m not going to try and change your mind, if that’s what you think,” she finally responds.

Donna exhales. “Thank you.”

“But you know I’m going to ask if you’re sure, and what it is you’re planning to do from here.” Diana cocks her head.

“Wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.” Donna sighs, leaning back. “I was thinking - I still have my camera, right? Photography, journalism, anything along those lines.” She pauses.

She thinks about what Dawn said to her, a million years ago. _Doing good doesn’t have to be about honouring her. It can be for you, too._

Donna straightens up. “I’m still Donna Troy. I’m not - I’ve never tried to be you. Wonder Girl was a way to honour you, after everything - but it doesn’t have to be everything I am. Maybe it’s time for a rebrand.”

Diana’s lips quirk. “A rebrand...as yourself?”

Donna pulls a face. “Yeah, could have worded that better.”

Diana chuckes, takes a bit of her food. “Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

“Not exactly.”

“I assumed as much.”

Donna glares at her. “I really do hate you sometimes, you know that, right?”

“Well, you can hate me while you tell me what’s bothering you.” Diana smiles, the picture of innocence, and Donna rolls her eyes.

She picks at her food, heart jackhammering, before the words leave her in a rush. “There was a woman. On the team. Dawn. I think I -” A lump lodges itself firmly in her throat.

She doesn’t look up at Diana, frightened of the pity she’ll see.

“Donna, look at me.”

It’s not pity in Diana’s eyes; it’s curiosity and overwhelming concern. “You love her?” She presses, gentle.

Donna wants to cry. “Yeah,” she manages, voice hoarse. “I love her. Or maybe - loved. Everything that’s happened...we haven’t talked in a while.”

Diana smiles, encouraging. “Tell me about her.”

Donna tells her about Dawn; the sound of her laugh, the colour of her hair. Tells her about Dawn’s midnight hunger pangs for the pizza place on the other side of town, her unrelenting hatred of country music, her endless patience even when she’s frustrated, has the worst sense of direction Donna has ever seen, claims to hate romantic films but sobbed at the end of _The Notebook_, spent a whole week trying to perfect an octopus shaped cake for Garth’s birthday.

She tells Diana about the night she woke up screaming and Dawn was first to her room, had stroked her hair until she fell back into a fitful sleep with Dawn’s arms around her, about how sometimes Dawn would take in so much of the teams individual feelings and burdens that sometimes Donna would have to remind her it wasn’t her responsibility to do so, she had to take care of herself, too.

She brushes over the mess between herself, Dick, Hank and Dawn, but she sees from Diana’s face that she’s worked it out herself.

“She’s sounds special,” Diana comments once Donna has stopped rambling.

Donna smiles sadly. “She is,” she says softly. “But I was too much of a coward to tell her how I felt, and now I’ve lost all of them, so…”

“Donna, you’re no coward,” Diana starts, but Donna waves her off.

“What was it like for you,” she asks after a moment, “after Steve?”

She feels Diana tense beside her, and instantly regrets bringing him up. She’s about to apologise when Diana starts talking.

“I thought my world was going to end,” Diana says plainly, resting her chin on clasped hands. “But it didn’t. And it was different for me, darling - Steve died, and it took a long time to let myself have closure. But Dawn is still alive, so I suppose the real question is whether you’re holding onto the thought of her because you’re still in love with her, or because you miss being apart of a team?”

Donna’s skin prickles, because of course Diana can read her like an open book. “I don’t know,” she says, honestly. “And I love you, but I hate your coded talk.”

Diana laughs. “That was hardly coded!”

In the morning, she sets up in the kitchen with her laptop to upload some new and old photos to the website she and Dick set up when she was eighteen - half as a joke, half because she genuinely wanted to see if she could _make something_ of this hobby. She hasn’t opened it in almost seven years and it is _very_ overdue a revamp.

“Looks good,” Diana comments over Donna’s shoulder. Donna beams at her.

By some miracle, a few photos are sold, boosting her confidence enough to put feelers out amongst some reporters, not really expecting much. Weeks and months go by, she’s out almost every day with her camera taking freelance work, and she _loves_ it, having a drive, something to work for - when she gets an email from a fairly prolific journalist asking for her help.

It goes back and forth for a few days until the woman - Felice - finally sends her an address to a warehouse near the Seine, and then all it takes is a few well timed photographs to begin the takedown of an underground weapons deal.

Felice runs the exposé, with Donna’s photos and credit to her - which Donna is initially reluctant to even accept because Felice had been chasing this story for almost a _year_, Donna knew for a _week_. Diana buys five copies and spreads them out across the kitchen table, practically glowing with pride. Donna feels giddy.

It feels good. It feels cathartic. She can help like this.

She gets three separate emails across a week, from Dawn, Hank and Dick. Dawn’s is a three-paragraph glowing review of Felice’s article and how incredibly proud she is of Donna. _Looks like you’ve finally hit your stride, Wonder Girl_, Ending with a wistful sentence saying she hopes they can catch up.

Hank’s is much in the same vein, congratulating her on one less scumbag off the street. She thanks them both sincerely, sends her love. She’ll call them, eventually, when thinking about them doesn’t feel like reopening a wound.

Dick’s is just one sentence long.

_Proud of you, Donna. Come home soon_.

She’s not entirely sure how to respond without upsetting both of them, so simply writes _Thanks, boy wonder. I’ll try_.

A jolt goes through her the day she realises it’s almost been a year since she left San Francisco, since the last time she saw them. She was in sporadic contact with Dick before the Felice’s article ran, but every email he sends her seems to become more and more withheld. If she didn’t have Google alerts on for Batman and Robin she wouldn’t even know what he was up to.

Every article she reads on them says the same thing - Robin’s escalating violence, leaving criminals half dead before the cops even get there.

She needs to call him, she knows, but every time she opens up his contact she remembers his voice when he told them Slade was dead, the hollow look in his eyes. It terrifies her, the thought of who might be on the other end of the call now.

* * *

The choice is not made lightly. After Felice’s article, there’s some stir from photography circles wanting to bring her on board. Donna filters through most of them, uninterested, until an offer from the Chicago Tribune catches her eye.

They’d read her site biography, apparently, seen that she grew up there, and wondered if she’d be willing to relocate to fill a photojournalist position on their side of the Atlantic. They recognise that she’s mostly freelance, but it couldn’t hurt to have a source of steady income for her work, right?

Donna hasn’t been back to Chicago since the fire; it’s been a whole city of avoidance for almost twenty years.

Perhaps it’s time to heal old wounds.

“Chicago?” Diana echos, sitting down on Donna’s bed, looking over the array of spreadsheets scattered around her. “Are you sure?”

Donna raises her eyebrows. “Thought you weren’t going to talk me out of it?”

“Donna.”

“I know, I know,” Donna grumbles. “It’s Chicago, the one place in the world I’ve avoided like the plague for most of my life, and now I’m suddenly buying an apartment there.”

Diana chuckles. “Yes - and also the fact I’m going to miss you when you go,” she says softly.

Donna stares at her, sorrow heavy in her chest. “Mom…”

Diana smiles, eyes shining. “Ignore me. But it has been nice, having you here. Reminds me of when you were young. You’ll always have a home here, _mon doux_.”

“I love you,” Donna whispers, “and I will come see you so much you’ll get sick of me eventually, but I think this is something I have to do.”

Diana reaches over to brush Donna’s hair back. “Like I could ever be sick of you.”

They spend the next week booking her flights, trying to navigate phone calls with the estate agent across the seven hour time difference and packing up what little belongings Donna had brought with her from San Francisco and accumulated in the last year.

Her Wonder Girl suit lays amongst the rest of her clothes, an angry red contrast against them. For a split second, Donna considers leaving it in Diana’s spare closet. She shoves it to the bottom of her suitcase instead.

The day she’s due to leave, Diana gets a phone call, and from the look on her face Donna knows immediately what it is.

“Go. I can make it the airport myself,” Donna assures her. Diana frowns, obviously torn between her duty to the Justice League and her desire to say goodbye to Donna properly. “_Go_. It’s fine, I’ll call you when I land.”

Diana hugs her hard, and Donna clings to her. She pulls back, brushes a hand over Donna’s cheek. “Take care of yourself, _mon amour_.”

She steals a copy of Euripides’ _Hippolytus_ play for the long flight ahead (not a first edition, because then Diana _would_ have her head), an old favourite; she’s always loved its examination of how people and actions can fit in a morally grey area, with everyone and no one to blame at the same time.

Donna lands in Chicago in a haze of jetlag, exhausted brain stalling every time someone speaks to her because it takes more than a few seconds to realise they’re speaking English, not French, and she gets tongue tied more than once trying to form a coherent sentence in a language she hasn’t spoken out loud in over a year.

After telling Diana she made it fine, she takes a cab from the airport, collects her keys from under a plant pot as instructed, barely pauses to look around the half-furnished apartment before grabbing a heavy throw blanket and pillows from the sofa, and promptly passes out on the bare mattress.

* * *

Chicago is both completely alien and achingly familiar, a jarring mix of faded childhood memories and striking newness. That first week, Donna walks aimlessly to get an idea of how far things are from her apartment, only to realise half an hour later that she’s walked all the way to the park beside the apartment building she used to live with her parents.

Startled, she immediately turns back. There are some things she’s not ready to face just yet.

The Tribune meeting goes as expected; they’re willing to take her on a limb, so long as they are her first checkpoint when she gets a story, and they _expect_ stories, Ms Troy, though they are willing to give some leniency providing this is the first time she’s stepped foot in the city in twenty years.

Donna doesn’t mind. She’s gotten a tip off about a poaching ring operating from Hong Kong, through the Midwest and down to the Gulf Coast. It’s all word of mouth from an anonymous source, but it’s also the most viable thing she’s got right now.

Her suit stays in a box at the back of her closet. It’s the only red thing in there.

Summer passes over into fall; Donna doesn’t even acknowledge it, so caught up in putting pieces together, barely scratching the surface of the story. She forgets to eat a lot, more than once looks up from her spot on the floor surrounded by files and paper clippings and an overheated laptop, surprised to see that it’s four or five in the morning, her whole body aching after lack of movement for hours on end.

_Slow down_, Diana texts her one night after Donna calls her in caffeine induced panic because her brain is going too fast. _Don’t throw yourself in all at once_.

After hitting another dead end, she reluctantly agrees to take a few days off, goes for a run to clear her head and actually eats a full meal. It’s only in the morning does she know what she has to do.

The outside hasn’t changed, is the first thing she notices, discomfort settling in her stomach like lead. Inside has been restored, including the floor the fire started. A doorman eyes her suspiciously as she run a finger over the callpad, stopping on a button for the third floor, the apartment Carl and Faye Troy died in.

A different family name sits in that slot, now - Bautista. Donna hopes they don’t know what happened in there.

It’s the memory of smoke that makes her eyes mist. She steps back abruptly, immediately colliding with someone behind her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I -” she starts, but the stranger cuts her off.

“Oh my God, it _is_ you.”

Donna stops short, instantly on guard, staring at the woman in front of her - brown skin, cropped frizzy hair, wide dark eyes, around her age. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

The woman looks disappointed. “Of course you don’t remember. You did, a long time ago.” She points inside the building. “We used to sit on that stairwell and listen to the old man in 106 play piano, then try to imitate it on my Mom’s keyboard until she banned us from using it.”

Something in Donna’s brain clicks suddenly into place, forgotten childhood memories of whispering stories under covers, broken plant pots learning to ride a bike, scraped knees and muddied dresses. A name.

“...Stella?” Donna gapes, awestruck. “Stella Ryder?”

“It’s, ah, Stella Hale now,” Stella stumbles a little as Donna throws her arms around her, tight as a vice. “I knew it was you as soon as I crossed the street, I _knew_ it.”

Donna doesn’t speak for fear of crying, but her eyes finally drop to the small boy behind Stella, clutching at her leg. Stella reaches back to pat his head. “Alfie, this is Donna, an old friend of Momma’s. Say hello.”

Alfie hides his face instead. He’s darker than Stella, eyes not as round, but Donna sees Stella in the set of his mouth and shape of his nose. She wonders where Mr Hale is.

Stella takes her by the arm and pulled her into a coffee shop, talking a mile a minute about nothing, the news, the weather. Donna suddenly remembers Stella’s older brother, Finn, always frowning and always fixing something. Stella tells her he went to NYU, became a chemical engineer.

“And you?” Donna asks, cold hands wrapped around her mug. “What is it you’re up to?”

Stella’s eyes are on Alfie, doodling on a menu with crayons. “Dad wanted me to go to med school, Mom wanted me to be a teacher - so I went to law school.” Stella grins. “Consultant work, mostly. Isaac - my husband - teaches at Northwestern. We met while I was doing my business Masters. And, you know, the rest is history - though I’m pretty sure it’s all about to go into upheaval, what with another kid on the way.” She flushes, pleased, when Donna congratulates her.

It’s jarring, listening to Stella’s life, all the paths she took - her education, her job, her marriage. It’s strange even looking at her, because in Donna’s mind Stella Ryder is a round faced eight-year-old girl with braces and an ability to talk herself out of anything. The twenty-four-year old woman sat in front of her, with a life and a family and overwhelming self-assurance is a total stranger to her.

They lapse into silence, the one thing they’re avoiding talking about being the only thing on either of their minds.

“I haven’t seen you since…” Stella starts, gentle.

“The fire.” Donna interrupts. “I know. I left without a word, and I am so sorry -”

“D, we were _kids_, and the worst thing that could have happened to anyone that age happened to you. Don’t apologise.” Stella pats her hand. “I never held it against you, how could I? Thought about you sometimes, though. Whenever I walk past that old place, if I see someone with dark hair, or if there’s a car outside I’ve never seen before, I start thinking about that little girl I spent afternoons bashing a keyboard and drawing chalk on the sidewalks, and where she was whisked off to.”

Donna swallows, then grins. “And how many of those poor souls did you deliberately bump into before me?”

Stella laughs. “Okay, not _that_ many.” She pulls a bored looking Alfie onto her lap. “So, am I allowed to ask where it is you disappeared to?”

“Uh, sort of everywhere?” Donna choose the story that sounds the most believable. “Paris, mostly. My, ah, my mom, the woman who adopted me, she travels for work a lot, but Paris is home base. I actually went back to live there for a while before moving here.”

Stella’s eyebrows shoot up. “Paris, huh? God, that must have been an amazing place to grow up.”

“_C’est un goût acquis, je pense_,” Donna says casually, grinning over her coffee cup as Stella rolls her eyes.

“So there’s your Mom, and you. No adopted brothers and sisters?”

Guilt stabs at her. “Sort of. Me and...him, his Dad worked with Mom a lot, _a lot_, __we kinda got thrown together.” She doesn’t mention Bruce, or the fact she hasn’t heard a word from Dick in months.

“So, no husband, kids?” Stella presses, and Donna chokes on her coffee.

“No! God, no.” She wipes her mouth hurriedly. “Definitely no husband. No anyone. I’m not even in a position to be looking, and I don’t think kids are on the cards.”

It’s quiet for a moment while Donna rights herself, until Stella gently says, “That sounds real lonely, D.”

Donna makes an effort not to feel insulted. “I have friends!”

“Who you don’t see.” Stella cut right through the bullshit. Donna sighs.

“Okay, it’s a little lonely.”

Stella beams at her, hugging Alfie close. “Well. isn’t it lucky we found you?”

The week her poaching story breaks, Stella insists Donna celebrate over at their place, which is how she meets Isaac Hale, a tall, mild mannered black man who smiles broadly at her when Stella ushers her into their warm house. Alfie is still evidently coming around to her, hiding behind his parents legs. But he sits beside her at dinner, and shyly offers her a Pokemon card, so Donna takes it as a win.

Stella’s bump is far more pronounced now, and she complains about missing wine and coffee while Isaac laughs and looks at her like she put the stars in the sky.

“Do you know what you’re having yet?” Donna asks, curious.

Isaac smiles and winks. “We do, but we’re keeping it quiet for now.”

“He means he doesn’t want to risk his mother accidentally finding out again.” Stella rolls her eyes.

“You blurting it out in the middle of a restaurant is what you call an accident?” Isaac goads her.

“She was interrogating me! You know what she’s like!” Stella insists. Donna laughs.

She wonders if this could have been her life, had Diana not taken her in, if it had been a regular human family instead. By now she’d have a home, maybe a wife, a couple of kids. Thinking about it makes her feel odd, and she pushes the thought away.

December rolls around, and she politely declines an invitation to spend Hanukkah with the Hale family, but still drops gifts off at their house for Alfie and the expectant baby.

On Christmas Eve, she works up enough nerve to call Dick. It goes straight to voicemail.

* * *

Donna’s life is unrecognisable to what it was two and a half years ago.

She has friends, a real unit of them who aren’t superpowered or out for revenge against the world. A job she genuinely loves no matter how little sleep she gets and how often Stella has to remind her to eat when she’s on a trail - money laundering, this time, which takes her all the way to Washington and more than one shady looking man following behind. Donna thinks her editor almost passes out when she presents what she's come up with.

Stella gives birth during the first week of May. A girl, Clara Ester Hale. She could be Alfie’s twin; Isaac’s eyes, Stella’s face. She’s unbearably adorable.

“I’m going to steal you,” Donna coos at the tiny bundle in her arms.

“Please don’t,” Isaac yawns, not even opening his eyes.

Alfie peers around Donna, staring down at his new baby sister. “Can I hold her?” He asks tentatively. Isaac cracks one eye open to watch Donna show Alfie how to properly hold a baby.

She dates around, a little, and is hilariously bad at it. More than one hookup, always at the other woman’s place, and _maybe_ a lot of them remind her of Dawn; sound of her laugh, shape of her eyes, the slope of her nose, one time the colour of her hair.

But there’s a part of her that’s settling, healing slowly. She panics less about her sexuality, notices that whenever she realises she attracted to another woman her second thought isn’t immediately _stop that_.

A woman Donna goes on more than one date with - Julie, a redhead with wicked green eyes and sharp tongue - kisses her in the middle of a restaurant and it’s the first time she can ever remember not falling to pieces over it. They see one another for three months before Julie goes back to Massachusetts. It’s not exactly heartbreak, but Donna cries over her for a few days.

She volunteers as a photographer for Pride, and gets pulled onto a float by a young girl with blue hair wrapped in a pansexual flag. It’s _freeing_. The photos she takes that day are sold to a gallery, and the pure joy Donna feels is quickly quietened with a sudden overwhelming urge to call Dick.

On her birthday, she wakes up to a voicemail from Hank and Dawn. Hearing their voices after so long is rattling. Donna’s pressing _call_ before she’s fully aware of what she’s doing, half hoping it rings out.

“Hello?”

Oh, God.

“Hey, Dawn.” Donna closes her eyes.

Dawn inhales sharply. “Really thought I was seeing things for a second, your name calling me. Been a while.”

“Way, way too long,” Donna says, internally cringing. “Are you- how is-”

“Donna, are you really going to small talk me?” Dawn asks, soft. Donna can hear her sad smile, and she wants to cry.

“No,” she murmurs, “no, not you.”

“I miss you.” Dawn’s voice breaks slightly, Donna’s heart with it.

“...Miss you, too. Always. Every single day.” Donna tries to compose herself, listens to Dawn’s familiar breathing. “I’m so sorry. I just - I wanted to call you, for so long, but the longer I left it the harder it got, which is the worst excuse _ever_, but it’s all I got.”

“I get it,” Dawn says quietly. “Might not be happy about it, but I get it. It’s not like I couldn’t have called you, either. God, we’re all fucking useless.”

Donna chuckles wetly. “We got there eventually though, right? That counts for something.” She settles back. “I’m here. Talk to me.”

Dawn tells her that she went back to London for a few months after that day, before she and Hank moved back to D.C., that they’re not doing so great but they’re getting there, explains that they’re thinking about hanging up Hawk and Dove for good. She tells Donna again how much she loves her articles, how proud she is of her. Donna tells her about Chicago, about the Hales, the story she’s working on, rushes through her disaster of a dating life and Dawn laughs. Neither of them mention Dick.

“Shit, my cell’s about to die,” Donna yawns, hours later.

“Mine, too,” Dawn sighs. “Should probably go, anyway, we’ve got a thing.”

“Dawn, it’s me, no code-talk.”

“Fine, we’re gonna be beating the shit out of some guys,” Dawns says bluntly, then pauses. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

Donna swallows. “Okay. Talk to you soon. Promise.”

It’s not quite closure, but it feels like absolution.

* * *

The first time she sees Dick Grayson in almost three years begins with him calling her at two in the morning.

Donna doesn’t make the effort of rolling over when her cell starts ringing incessantly, blindly feeling behind her until she finds the offending object, doesn’t even look at the contact name before answering.

“What?” She groans, too tired to be polite.

“Donna,” Dick’s broken voice pleads.

Donna shoots up, feeling like she’s been electrocuted. “What the fuck? Dick?”

“Yeah,” he laughs bitterly. “Been a while, huh?” He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears and Donna feels dread filling her chest.

“Dick, it’s two in the morning, what’s happened? Where are you?” Her voice is shaking, mind going through every terrible possibility.

“Uh, Indianapolis, I think.” She hears him exhale shakily. “Don, I really need a favour.”

“Anything.” She knows what he’s about to ask before he asks it.

He gets to her apartment at four in the morning, and looks - awful. From what little he has she can tell he drove all the way from Gotham, only stopping to call her.

“Fuck, what have you gotten yourself into?” She asks shakily when she opens the door, throwing her arms around him. He’s stiff as a board, swaying on the spot. She does a quick check of his vitals, any injuries, and he seems to melt into her touch.

He doesn’t say a word, silently follows her until he drops his bag in her room and falls face first onto her side of the bed, fast asleep.

Donna stares at him, still reeling, way too wired to sleep. She pulls his shoes off and throws a spare blanket over him, sits up against the headboard beside him and watches him snore into her pillow. “What’s he done to you, boy wonder?”

Dick sleeps for ten hours straight, stumbling out of her bedroom mid afternoon, hair a birds nest.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Donna says dryly, offering up a cup of herbal tea. “You wanna tell me what happened?”

Dick sinks into the chair beside her. “Tony Zucco’s dead,” he says flatly.

Donna freezes. “Tony Zucco as in the guy hired by the Maroni’s to kill your parents,” she says slowly. “Okay. He’s dead. That mean you killed him?”

Dick’s jaw clenches, and he shakes his head. Donna eyes the cuts and bruises on his knuckles, the dark bags under his eyes. There’s something he’s not telling her.

She closes her laptop. “Dick, don’t make me pry it out of you. It’s more than Zucco, isn’t it?”

Dick looks up at her, pained. Three years, and time has not been kind.

“I can’t stay with him,” he says, finally. “It’s - the violence, I can’t -” his voice shakes.

Realisation dawns on Donna. “You’ve left Bruce.” Dick lowers his head, and that is answer enough. “Fuck, okay. You can - stay here as long as you need to, alright? Though, for the love of God, take the spare room, not mine.”

Dick smiles stiffly. “Thank you. And, uh,” he coughs. “Have you heard from Hank and Dawn?”

Donna raises her eyebrows. “Yeah, a few times. You?”

“Not a thing.” And there’s that voice again, the one that makes her heart hurt. “You look good. Settled, here.” His eyes roam around her apartment.

Donna tilts her head at him. “You don’t.”

“I missed you.”

“Yeah, missed you too, bird boy.”

Dick is angrier and more hurt than she’s ever seen him, and the thought of what he might do when he leaves scares her enough to call Diana.

“I don’t think there’s a lot you can here, _mon doux_,” Diana sighs, sounding as frustrated at Donna feels. “Whatever happened between the Bat and his ward runs much deeper than one fight.”

“Could you at least talk to Bruce?” Donna pleads.

“I’ve _tried_. He won’t even talk to _Clark_.” Donna winces at Diana’s tone. Yeah, okay, that’s bad.

Dick says for five days, and leaves without a goodbye while Donna is working. There’s a note on her kitchen table with just a _Thank you_ and an address in Detroit. It crumples in her fist.

* * *

The first time Donna meets Kory Anders, she throws a lasso around her neck.

As first meetings go for her, it doesn’t even make the top three worst.

Kory gets on her nerves, steals her clothes, challenges her about leaving the Titans and gets in Donna’s face with her stupid bright green eyes and magenta hair and a _spaceship_ that’s probably the most impressive thing Donna’s ever seen.

In hindsight, Donna never stood a damn chance. But given the circumstances of a girl Dick has taken under his wing and her _actual demon father_ trying to eat the Earth, it’s not like they had much time to think.

When the dust settles, and Dick has taken her Jeep down a long stretch of road, she sees Kory’s staring after it, the heartbreak on her face, and thinks _Fuck it_.

“Hey, if you don’t wanna...fly off right away -” she hears Hank groan behind her “- you’re more than welcome to stay at my place for a while.”

Kory arches an eyebrow at her. “Stay at your place for a while,” she repeats.

“Yeah, take is an apology for the whole lasso thing. Chicago’s not so bad.”

Kory grins at her, eyes warm. “Might take you up on that.”

“You realise you offered to harbour a fugitive, right?” Dawn asks casually, leaning against the car with a coffee while Hank fills up with gas. Kory’s a few meters away, calling someone. Probably the kids.

“Okay, bird-vigilante probably wanted by a few police officers,” Donna deadpans, and Dawn rolls her eyes.

It’s not the same, that feeling. Donna still loves her, always will - just not like that, not anymore. It’s been a long five years, and the time apart seems to have healed that particular ache.

“What? I got something on my face?” Dawn asks, and Donna realises she’s been staring.

“Oh, no, it’s -” she pauses. Dawn raises her eyebrows.

She thinks about Garth, of those five years apart, of Stella and Isaac and Alfie and Clara, of Dick’s face whenever she caught him looking over at Rachel and Gar, thinks about every single thing she's ever stopped herself from saying.

“I loved you,” Donna tells her, and Dawn goes still. “Back then, in San Francisco.”

Dawn’s face isn’t shock so much as it is concern. “Loved,” she repeats. “Past tense?”

“A lot happened in five years, Dawn,” she says, not unkindly. “You were my best friend - you still _are_, and that’s the one thing I was terrified of messing up.”

Dawn is still staring at her. “I’m sorry,” she says, “if I ever did anything that hurt you because of that.”

Donna smiles. “Don’t be. You’re incredibly easy to fall in love with.”

* * *

Kory moves into Donna’s spare bedroom, and they go from there.

Inevitably, it’s awkward at first - they know nothing about one another beyond the fact Kory is an alien sent from another planet to kill a fourteen year old girl and Donna is an old friend of Dick’s.

Donna spends a week getting to know Kory Anders, or as much as Kory is willing to tell her. There’s her home planet, Tamaran, and Kory talks about it in such a way that Donna begins to suspect she’s someone important on it. There’s a wistful look on her face whenever she brings it up, coupled with a seemingly shaking certainty of not wanting to go back. Donna chooses not to ask why.

“Wait, so you’ve been on Earth for two years already?” Donna interrupts, surprised.

“If memory serves.”

“What were you doing between then and now?”

Kory’s face flickers. “I’m not sure you want to know,” she says carefully, and Donna lets it go.

Donna takes her around Chicago, introduces her to cuisine beyond pizza, and Kory finds she has a liking for buttermilk donuts and beef empanadas. She buys herself a new wardrobe, leather jackets and short sleeved t-shirts in various shades of purple.

Half as a joke, Donna takes her to Alinea just to see the incredulous look on Kory’s face when she explains that, yes, the balloons being served are edible. It’s worth it for how much Kory laughs at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

Kory’s a terrible cook, plays far too much 70s music, is a complete neat freak (she finds it therapeutic), is apparently a cat person and constantly looks over Donna’s shoulder when she’s trying to work. It’s irritating until the day Kory points at the mess of maps and notes and charts of cash flow that Donna is going cross-eyed staring at and says, “Those two names keep coming up, see?” Donna actually jumps up to hug her, and in the two seconds between pulling away to grin into her face, wants dearly to kiss her.

Neither of them sleep much, and after the first few awkward encounters of four am snacks they settle into a routine of tea making and reading on their respective sofas, Donna with her Greek tragedies and biographies and Kory with the poetry books she’s discovered a fondness of. Donna sometimes catches herself staring at Kory, soft and sleep rumpled, more often than her books.

It’s achingly domestic. Donna _wants_.

They don’t talk about Dick, which Donna is selfishly relieved about, because she’s trying desperately not to think about the fact that it’s happening _again_, that she and Dick are falling for the same woman and Donna’s the one with the sickening guilt in her gut.

Kory calls the kids a lot, though, a heartbreaking fondness on her face whenever she talks to them. Donna introduces her to Stella and Isaac, little Alfie and Clara to take her mind off it. It doesn’t fix anything, but it helps.

She offhandedly mentions to Stella that Kory is “sort of seeing my brother”, and Stella gives her a careful look like she knows, and Donna refuses to meet her eyes.

Donna can’t have Kory, the same way she couldn’t have Dawn, not like that. And it’s fine, really, she’s fine. She’ll live. Because at least she still has them in her life, in her home and beside her during long nights and dragging days. Maybe she’ll find someone who wants her like that, eventually. She’ll take what she can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is more than i’ve written in my entire life so i’ll be hibernating for the next month if anyone needs me.
> 
> comments and kudos appreciated as always :)


End file.
